Bill Vorley, IIED

At the Seas of Change workshop in 2014 we talked about the value of doing inclusive business from a smallholders’ point of view with Bill Vorley, researcher on sustainable markets at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

“When you get to it, some of these so-called inclusive business propositions are not necessarily higher value, compared to what you can get on the local market. Or in the informal market. Or they require you to specialize to such an extent that you expose yourself as a household to more risk. So I think it’s important to not be too paternalistic in a way that we come into smallholder agriculture and think that our market is always going to be a convincing value proposition.”